Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief

A groundbreaking book exploring the little-known yet critical connections between anxiety and grief, with practical strategies for healing, following the renowned Kübler-Ross stages model

If you’re suffering form anxiety but not sure why, or if you’re struggling with loss and looking for solace, Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief offers help — and answers. Significant loss and unresolved grief are primary underpinnings of anxiety, something that grief expert Claire Bidwell Smith discovered in her own life and in her practice with her therapy clients. Now, using research and real life stories, Smith breaks down the physiology of anxiety, giving you a concrete foundation of understanding in order to help you heal. Starting with the basics of What Is Anxiety? and What Is Grief? and moving to concrete approaches such as Making Amends, Taking Charge, and Retraining Your Brain, Anxiety takes a big step beyond Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s widely accepted five stages to unpack everything from our age-old fears about mortality to the bare vulnerability a loss can make us feel.

With concrete tools and coping strategies for panic attacks, getting a handle on anxious thoughts, and more, Smith bridges these two emotions in a way that is deeply empathetic and eminently practical.

A Talk with Claire Bidwell Smith, LCPC

How did you come to determine that anxiety is the “missing stage of grief?” I’ve been a grief therapist for a decade and over the last ten years of working with hundreds of clients in both hospice and private practice, anxiety has been the predominant symptom afflicting my clients following a significant loss. I experienced […]